By: Shawn Cramer on November 3, 2020
When asked how to prepare children for the exponential progress of technology, iconoclastic economist Nassim Taleb answered, “Read the classics” (Antifragile, 320). He goes on to posit, “The future is in the past.” The best innovations, then, have an intimate understanding of the past, are doggedly present to the immediate moment, and have an imaginative…
By: Darcy Hansen on November 3, 2020
How long, O Lord, will you forget us? How long will you turn your face away? How long will your silence be deafening; Your presence imperceivable? We are wasting away consumed by corruption, manipulation, greed, and partisan politics. Democrats sit crouched, ready to pounce on Republicans. Republicans stand armed ready to shoot whoever…
By: Dylan Branson on November 2, 2020
Regret hits me as soon as I let go of the rope. The current of the river is too much as it drags me and pulls me every which way. I desperately scrounge around the bottom of the boat, looking for an oar or a paddle or something I can use to correct my poor…
By: Chris Pollock on October 27, 2020
This morning, the first thing that happened to me was that I woke up. I wake up every morning. One day, this won’t happen. One day there will not be anything to wake up to, perhaps. Until then, I’m happy to dream of a less destructive way of coming to life every morning than an…
By: Greg Reich on October 27, 2020
Life is full of idioms! Phrases that aren’t intended to be taken literally but do have a specific meaning for the hearer. I highly doubt that any of us stop in mid-sentence or mid-thought to realize that we just used or heard an idiom that expresses ourselves. Comments like: “It’s time to go back to…
By: Shawn Cramer on October 27, 2020
“I like this innovative summary,” my co-worker told me, “but I’ve never since this word, ‘generative,’ before.” Furthermore, my word processor won’t recognize the noun form, “generativity.” Unapologetically, this piece is a call to engender “generative” to the normal vernacular of a leader. As an artist and thought leader who resists the utilitarian pragmatism of…
By: Jer Swigart on October 26, 2020
One of the outcomes of my Design Session was a new moniker for my target audience: The Precipice Dweller. She is a pilgrim who has dared to journey into a liminal space between “What I’m running from.” to “What I’m running toward.” She’s a sojourner whose rebellious spirit has taken her to the precipice and…
By: Dylan Branson on October 26, 2020
I stand on the bank of the raging river outside of Knowing’s Edge, watching the stream rush by before me. The gurgling of the water flowing before is both enticing and terrifying. I’m not entirely sure how long I’ve been at the inn – it feels like a long time, and yet not long at…
By: Darcy Hansen on October 26, 2020
Every July or August, for the past nine years, I have spent weeks packing and preparing to make my way to the small, East African country of Rwanda. I distinctly remember returning from my first mission trip in 2011 and my husband asking me what my big takeaway was. I told him, “In Rwanda I…
By: Chris Pollock on October 24, 2020
I wonder what the first thing I knew was? What also tweaks my curiosity is what the first thing was, that I had learned and realised as true. Could it have been ‘love’? I’d like to think so but, I don’t know. Love is the best thing that I have known in my life, it…
By: Jer Swigart on October 22, 2020
My team just finished up a three-day, in-person on-site retreat. It was the first time we’ve been in the same room since March and it was life-giving. So much has changed since we last were together. During our convening in March, we were set to move into a future that would have scaled up our…
By: Shawn Cramer on October 21, 2020
If we were to journey into the fray with family therapist and organizational thought-leader, Edwin Friedman, we would likely move with the cadence of the word “self.” Self-differentiation from the surrounding emotional processes. Self-determination of one’s values. Exposing one’s self to vulnerability. Self-regulation of emotions. Leadership in liminality demands a proper sense of self. Frederick…
By: Dylan Branson on October 19, 2020
The inside of Knowing’s Edge is unlike anything I have ever seen. Thick, overstuffed armchairs dot the room and eclectic artwork lines the walls. Long wooden tables with dinner’s remains await to be cleaned, but no one actively makes their way to do so. The room itself is dimly lit with a thin haze of…
By: Darcy Hansen on October 19, 2020
Words flew through the air like bullets on a battlefield, leaving deep, gaping wounds. Not the best way to begin a Saturday morning. Still, there we were, once again, in an emotionally explosive situation with no real hope in sight. For months, the darkness had been settling in as circumstances with our daughter went from…
By: Greg Reich on October 19, 2020
We often look at life like flipping a coin. “Heads I win, tails I lose”; a depiction, that for many things in life there are only two choices, winning or loosing. In a situation where we think we or someone else has the advantage the saying becomes “Heads I win, tails you lose”; depicting that…
By: Chris Pollock on October 16, 2020
‘I am a street person. I am twelve…I am twenty…I am sixty years old. I live on concrete fields and bask in the sunshine of neon. My pillow is of stone and my fortune lies in broken promises. My daily bread comes from a needle and alcohol soothes the pain within me.’1 A…
By: Jer Swigart on October 14, 2020
For the past 10 years, Global Immersion has been relatively successful at honing, teaching, and training our message of restorative theology and practice of Everyday Peacemaking. We’ve identified the power of immersive learning as a central ingredient to the awakening of dominant culture faith leaders to the imperial theology (& its implications) that they’ve been…
By: Darcy Hansen on October 13, 2020
Five years ago, at this time, I was midway through a grueling 28-week training schedule for the Walt Disney World Dopey Challenge. Preparing for this challenge was exhausting and exhilarating. The run was being hosted on my 45thbirthday weekend, and involved completing a 5K, 10K, ½ marathon, and marathon over the course of four consecutive…
By: Shawn Cramer on October 13, 2020
Scientifically, gases fill the entire space given to them. Sociologically, people fill their entire space – basement or garage – with “stuff.” Organizationally, meetings tend to fill the entire time allotted. Likewise, a temptation for the global leader is to fill the entire space given, to be the hero. Leadership is not about filling space,…
By: Dylan Branson on October 12, 2020
I breathe a sigh of unease as the fog around me begins to clear. I cannot recall the last time I stepped beyond the walls of the Tower. There is tension in the air as we navigate the winding path through the thick fog. Pockets of it are less dense – vague recollections of places…
